It drives me mad trying to understand why these people who label themselves Christians/Muslims would continue to worship their God that they say is so loving and perfect when God has done so many horrible atrocities according to the "Perfect word of God, the Bible." or the Qur'an. You would think that they may not be aware of God's psychopathy because they don't read the Bible, or that because they never hear about God's atrocities in church, but no, most really do know perfectly well what their supposedly all-loving perfect God is capable of and yet they still worship and defend their monster God. It sickens me.

I do not hate fanatical Christians or Muslims or wish them any ill, but I have a dislike for them and a very strong distrust for fanatical Christians and Muslims. I will not associate myself with them or ever bother to befriend one, they are, in my opinion, wolves in sheep's clothing. Try debating with a fanatical Christian or Muslim about their God who causes world-wide floods, burns cities to the ground, kills infants and children, and supposedly will torture billions of unbelievers in Hell for an eternity, where they will scream out while suffering unimaginable agony, that will never, ever end. Their cries and pleas for it to stop completely ignored. They will simply reply that "It is how God works and we should never question him." Or some other equally ridiculous response.

Now you should be able to see why I have such a strong disgust and distrust for people who actually believe that Hell fate will happen to billions of people (even just one person suffering such a fate would be infinitely wrong, an infinite punishment for finite crimes cannot be justified) and think it's perfectly okay and that their psychopathic God is still "loving and perfect." and continue to worship their God. I would not at all be surprised if such fanatical believers were actually psychopaths themselves. Would anyone please try to explain to me why they think these people would still call their God loving and perfect and continue to worship God when you show them all the evidence of God's psychopathic behavior that any half normal thinking and feeling human being would look at with complete and utter disgust?

« Last Edit: February 28, 2013, 06:22:03 AM by J0SH »

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"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion." -Robert M. Pirsig“Be the change you want to see in the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi

Ha. It really doesn't matter what God does to anyone else, because while whatever millions are being tortured or going to hell believers are all going to heaven.

What you don't understand is that in almost every religion there are two sides of the coin. If you are an atheist then you get only the bad side. To you, God is the pissed-off guy in heaven judging every wrong thing you have ever done. When you die this God is going to torture you in your guilty agony for all eternity. On the other hand to a believer, God is the warm father figure smiling down and lending a helping hand to encourage them do good. When they die God is going to give them their long desired approval and reward all their sufferings with an eternal bliss in heaven. When you ask someone to give up God this is what you are really asking them to surrender. You can't expect to get more than a futile argument. It is because the God you feel and the God they feel is not the same God.

God loves them.God rewards them.They are Gods children.

So do not think that His relationship with you takes any precedence in the matter or that it even bothers them. One thing I can admire with Muslims is that they are generally more willing to admit to this than the average Christian. Regardless, such is the way with every religion.

Luke 9:5 And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.

This is the true attitude of God to an unbeliever. Not love or even hatred, but indifference.

Isiah 59:1 Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: Isiah 59:2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Suffering, death and mourning are unavoidable parts of human life. Death and misery will occur whether God puts a hand in it or not. But when one calls out to Him, surrenders and becomes His child then suddenly all those promises in the Bible kick in. God becomes the desperately protective Father, the mother bird seethingly jealous of her eggs and the estranged lover willing to go to any lengths (even death) for the sake of his spouse. The Egyptians, the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Seven tribes that were driven like insects on the face of the earth to meet the needs of one. What did it matter to God, they were nothing to Him. And to the Israelites, the objects of His love, no doubt they felt pity for their enemies but they were human and their God was not.

The greatest problem that a person has with worshiping God is their own guilt. I am not suggesting that there are no other reasons or that every atheistic person is such way because of guilt. All i am saying is that most people that are born into Christian homes but do not enjoy church, prayer or someone walking into the room with a salvation message have this discomfort because of guilt. I am yet to meet a person who has never experienced this. It is the exact same feeling you get when you face a person you have wronged.

Our guilt reveals the tail-side nature of God, his wrath, his judgement. Once a person begins to feel themselves an object of gods wrath rather than His love it becomes better to them that he does not exist. They shut their eyes to any higher morality so that they can pass a benign verdict on themselves. They begin to sympathize with the unloved thinking "maybe God shouldn't be so harsh."[1] Like a thief sitting in the courtroom during another mans trial they compensate for their guilt by shouting the loudest accusations. If they persecute long enough, they eventually forget that they are no different from the people that they are condemning and that the unimaginable redemption they have did not come by what they did or didn't do but simply because they were loved.

Guilt. So some shut their eyes to it and others are driven to mar their own sight. And each looks for a justification to their false reality. The pious Christian will jump at the chance to prove that another is depraved and not as righteous or deserving as he. While the doubter will ask questions not really hoping for answers but seeking conformation that there is no light beyond his darkness and nothing great enough to cast judgement on him. While others believe that denying guilt is Truth, I believe the only way forward is to make atonement.

What you don't understand is that in almost every religion there are two sides of the coin. If you are an atheist then you get only the bad side.

I disagree with your presumption that an atheist doesn't understand that religion has 2 sides. That's very inaccurate. What the atheist does, that the theist does not, is actually take into consideration the bad side, whereas the theist tends to explain it away as if its all excusable.

The atheist says, "There are good things in the world and bad things in the world. What sort of God is most likely to exist if this is the case?" The answer is either a completely neutral god, or no god at all. Do you see that as unreasonable?

To you, God is the pissed-off guy in heaven judging every wrong thing you have ever done. When you die this God is going to torture you in your guilty agony for all eternity.

This is also inaccurate. To us, God isn't real. But if we were to step into the God belief system and hypothetically approach the question as if God actually existed, what we see from the evidence everywhere in the world is that God doesn't care at all for the plight of humans. And we find that abhorrent, given his hypothetical capabilities for rectifying problems. And I, for one, have a huge problem with the idea of anyone worshiping such a being that allows the awful things to happen in this world.

On the other hand to a believer, God is the warm father figure smiling down and lending a helping hand to encourage them do good. When they die God is going to give them their long desired approval and reward all their sufferings with an eternal bliss in heaven. When you ask someone to give up God this is what you are really asking them to surrender. You can't expect to get more than a futile argument. It is because the God you feel and the God they feel is not the same God.

This is true, but ask yourself why... It is because people who believe in God are taught that 'God is good' and anything that comes up against that is wrong. They are taught to suspend their own judgement regarding the actions of this supposed being in order to maintain the premise that 'God is good'. So all the atrocities, horrors, and terrors of this world are explained in multitudes of ways, with the most common one being 'we don't always understand God'. In essence, they become a lot like the German people during WWII who firmly believed that the Jews were evil and that Hitler was good, and thus his extermination of the Jews was 'good' because there's no way Hitler could have been evil and no Jews could be good.

But when one calls out to Him, surrenders and becomes His child then suddenly all those promises in the Bible kick in. God becomes the desperately protective Father, the mother bird seethingly jealous of her eggs and the estranged lover willing to go to any lengths (even death) for the sake of his spouse.

How does the Christian explain, then, why so many times when people call out to God, he still lets them suffer and die? Oh, that's right. By holding onto the notion that 'God is good' despite the massive, overwhelming evidence that He's not. Again, this is what I think so many of us have a hard time with. Why can't believers look at things like childhood cancer and see the blatantly obvious fact that if childhood cancer exists, God put it there? God isn't out there protecting people. He's not there at all.

The greatest problem that a person has with worshiping God is their own guilt. I am not suggesting that there are no other reasons or that every atheistic person is such way because of guilt. All i am saying is that most people that are born into Christian homes but do not enjoy church, prayer or someone walking into the room with a salvation message have this discomfort because of guilt. I am yet to meet a person who has never experienced this. It is the exact same feeling you get when you face a person you have wronged.

What discomfort are you talking about? Are you saying that the discomfort atheists feel when faced with Christians has to do with us feeling guilty about not worshiping their God? That's rather presumptuous don't you think? Why don't you actually ask us what the 'discomfort' is all about before you jump the gun and put your foot in your mouth?

I have zero guilt. None. That 'discomfort' you might sense from atheists (at least in my own experience) stems from the fact that I feel sorry for Christians, and I don't really want to be mean to them, but at the same time, I think they're embarrassing themselves. Have you ever asked an atheist if he feels guilty for not worshiping someone elses God? I'd bet you haven't.

I was born into a Christian home, did not enjoy church, and people who come up to me with a salvation message are assuming that I require something that I don't. Don't you see that Christianity basically says you have a disease and that Christianity itself is the cure for it? It's like selling someone poison, telling them to drink it, and then selling them the antidote and acting as if you 'saved' them, when it was you that poisoned them in the first place.

I'm an atheist because there is no evidence for God that I find credible.

Once a person begins to feel themselves an object of gods wrath rather than His love it becomes better to them that he does not exist.

That's absolutely wrong. If someone believed that God existed, and felt themselves becoming an object of God's wrath, it would be better to do what it takes to get back in line and not be the object of God's wrath anymore, but that ONLY works if you believe in God. Don't you see that? If you find yourself the object of your parent's wrath, it's not a reasonable position to take to say they don't exist anymore.

An atheist doesn't believe in God because there is no good evidence that God exists. Period. Let me give you one tiny example. I can't see God. Now I'm sure Christians will jump all over that and talk about things like 'just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist', and rightfully so, because taken on it's own, it's not good enough. But when you take this one tiny little fact that, and you add it to a million other tiny little facts that are similar to that ( I.E. you can't test God, can't hear, taste, measure, demonstrate, or otherwise detect God, the history of the bible, no historians record Jesus, thousands of other religions, etc, etc, multiplied by a million) that make it reasonable to conclude that God doesn't exist.

They begin to sympathize with the unloved thinking "maybe God shouldn't be so harsh."

What you call 'sympathizing with the unloved thinking' (I have no idea what it means) is what I call thinking and judging actions for myself. What would be so bad with God (if you hypothetically assume he's real) being less harsh? Do you really think child rape is good for the universe?

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Whenever events that are purported to occur in our best interest are as numerous as the events that will just as soon kill us, then intent is hard, if not impossible to assert. NDT

Ha. It really doesn't matter what God does to anyone else, because while whatever millions are being tortured or going to hell believers are all going to heaven.

What you don't understand is that in almost every religion there are two sides of the coin. If you are an atheist then you get only the bad side. To you, God is the pissed-off guy in heaven judging every wrong thing you have ever done. When you die this God is going to torture you in your guilty agony for all eternity. On the other hand to a believer, God is the warm father figure smiling down and lending a helping hand to encourage them do good. When they die God is going to give them their long desired approval and reward all their sufferings with an eternal bliss in heaven. When you ask someone to give up God this is what you are really asking them to surrender. You can't expect to get more than a futile argument. It is because the God you feel and the God they feel is not the same God.

So I guess god is kinda like a father that showers loves and kisses to one of his children, and then goes into the next room to beat up and whip the other one.

What an utterly embarrassing answer to the question and you got so much of completely wrong that I cant imagine how you missed it. But Jeff was able to address most of it. However, he did miss one important part that I will address. You stated that this "god" was going to judge our actions, and you know that is a complete and blatant lie. I think most of us would be comfortable with being judged on our actions, its the only thing that makes sense to judge on. But your sky pappy is not judging actions, he is judging on whether we believe a stupendous story about him molesting his own teenage mother, who is also the fiance to some pedophile, in order to put his demonic seed/also himself onto this earth, that he fed multitudes of people with one trout and a package of wonderbread, and that this carpenter somehow died for the sins of some mythical person who ate an unapproved pear but passed sin down through his genes to later generations, even though the latter people didnt even eat an unapproved magical pear. And this magical carpenter who is also the child molester mentioned earlier (the first one not the pedophile fiance) died on a couple sticks because he made the Romans and the real magical sky pappy, Zeus, mad, but he didnt really die he just did something else for three days and came back. But his clique after the three days didnt recognize him and thought he was John the water dipper, in that he dipped people in water. But what I dont get is that since the molester carpenter didnt really die, how is he supposed to have forgiven sins? Since death is the only remedy for the molester sky pappy and his molester carpenter son, who is actually himself, no sins have been absolved since the last goat sacrifice...

Anyways all this is to point out that yahweezy isnt judging any actions here, only exactly how much bullshit one can take before calling him on his bullshit. You should add this into your post.

What you don't understand is that in almost every religion there are two sides of the coin. If you are an atheist then you get only the bad side.

I would amend this slightly, to read "in religion there are two sides of the coin; atheists are the only ones who see the bad side." As a believer, I did indeed see god as a warm, caring, approachable creature of purest intent, the very personification of love. I call that the unquestioned starting point-- a subconscious, unchallenged belief (or set of beliefs) from which any related beliefs are derived. Until we overcome that mental block, we cannot see the other side of the coin because we refuse to admit that it exists. Once we do, we see god as the crude amalgam of conflicting man-made control schemes that he really is, and it is a natural desire to disbelieve him as quickly and thoroughly as we can.

Our guilt reveals the tail-side nature of God, his wrath, his judgement. Once a person begins to feel themselves an object of gods wrath rather than His love it becomes better to them that he does not exist. They shut their eyes to any higher morality so that they can pass a benign verdict on themselves.

This is how I explain this change in perspectives. Please, this is not a personal attack on your character. There are probably other explanations and i am open to hear them but this is what I have personally observed speaking to Christians in the process of loosing their faith. Why should a gods apparent relationship with humans give any bearing on its existence/non-existence? There have been evil gods recorded in human history. I think guilt makes people afraid to believe in God[1]. It definitely makes it harder.

The greatest problem that a person has with worshiping God is their own guilt. I am not suggesting that there are no other reasons or that every atheistic person is such way because of guilt. All i am saying is that most people that are born into Christian homes but do not enjoy church, prayer or someone walking into the room with a salvation message have this discomfort because of guilt. I am yet to meet a person who has never experienced this. It is the exact same feeling you get when you face a person you have wronged.

What discomfort are you talking about? Are you saying that the discomfort atheists feel when faced with Christians has to do with us feeling guilty about not worshiping their God? That's rather presumptuous don't you think? Why don't you actually ask us what the 'discomfort' is all about before you jump the gun and put your foot in your mouth?

I have zero guilt. None. That 'discomfort' you might sense from atheists (at least in my own experience) stems from the fact that I feel sorry for Christians, and I don't really want to be mean to them, but at the same time, I think they're embarrassing themselves. Have you ever asked an atheist if he feels guilty for not worshiping someone elses God? I'd bet you haven't.

-snip-

I'm an atheist because there is no evidence for God that I find credible.

Notice the bold. Also, when I made this statement I was referring to Christians. Atheists so far as I know do not have any problem worshiping God. The OP asked how Christians do it. I was merely trying to shed light on the subject.

Once a person begins to feel themselves an object of gods wrath rather than His love it becomes better to them that he does not exist.

That's absolutely wrong. If someone believed that God existed, and felt themselves becoming an object of God's wrath, it would be better to do what it takes to get back in line and not be the object of God's wrath anymore, but that ONLY works if you believe in God. Don't you see that? If you find yourself the object of your parent's wrath, it's not a reasonable position to take to say they don't exist anymore.

Having personally witnessed this form of denial several times I must disagree with you here. If you served at a church or perhaps some other religious institution you would see how uncommon the reaction you proposed is.Human beings are not rational creatures. We do not do what is meaningful so much as we choose to do what is easy. Let me use your analogy. A child does something wrong, rather than immediately fessing up and taking punishment to return to their parents good graces most children would rather hide what they've done in the cupboard or under the stairs.So how does one hide from an omnipresent god. Easy, since God is in the mind of the believer one merely has to push Him out of ones thoughts to successfully hide from Him. God is like the monster under the bed, if you close your eyes and wish Him away than He ceases to exist. Its the same with every moral law, people want to break the law but they don't want to accept its condemnation. Pretending the law doesn't exist lets them have it both ways.

No offense taken. But before I respond I want to make sure I understand what you are claiming. Basically: some of us have fallen short of the glory of god and, fearing his wrath, we pretend that he does not exist. That way, we can set the moral bar as low as we need to in order to accommodate our behavior without guilt. Is that the gist of it, or is there any part that I misunderstood?

Bluecolor,Basically: some of us have fallen short of the glory of god and, fearing his wrath, we pretend that he does not exist.

Wow, what an interesting concept. So it could be said that atheists are only "pretending" to believe god does not exist because we fear his wrath. This sounds suspiciously like the Christian paradigm that works it out so heads, god wins, tails, god wins. Or if I deny I am in denial it means I am in denial. Maybe I'm only pretending to be in denial.

From the biblical perspective, Romans 3:23: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". "All" has the meaning of every one, no exceptions.

As a believer, I did indeed see god as a warm, caring, approachable creature of purest intent, the very personification of love.

That's because you learned about god from your culture (God), which is a completely different character than the one described in the bible (yhwh) or the one theologians conceive. When you read the bible, you already had all the baggage of the cultural God uploaded into your belief system. Whenever you read about yhwh, you applied God concepts to.

yhwh ordered the genocide of a nation by the hebrews? Oh, well, since God is good and just and merciful, then the Canaanites must have deserved it.

Adam and Eve were created by yhwh without the ability to make moral decisions? Oh, ummm, God wanted free will.

Yhwh commanded Abraham to murder his son? Heyyyy, it was just a little test of faith from God. And he sent an angel to stop him anyway.

Yhwh allowed a satan to destroy Job's family? Big deal. He replaced them with a better one.

Most people cannot drop their preconceptions to see what the god of the bible really is. They are unable to think critically about it. But once you become an atheist, all that baggage falls away and it lets you read the bible in a plain and straightforward way. You can look at how yhwh acts and determine his morality without the cultural bias.

You then read about the Midianites and are appalled at the genocide and rape commanded by yhwh. You read about yhwh wanting obedient automatons and wonder why yhwh put a serpent in the garden. You read about Abraham and wonder who is the bigger monster - yhwh for testing him that way or Abe for going through with it. You read about Job and see the point of the story is not blind faith, but rather, that yhwh is as random and capricious as nature, and a bully to boot.

That's because you learned about god from your culture (God), which is a completely different character than the one described in the bible (yhwh) or the one theologians conceive. When you read the bible, you already had all the baggage of the cultural God uploaded into your belief system. Whenever you read about yhwh, you applied God concepts to.

Yes to this, and the rest of your post. It's my understanding exactly. It's what I have started referring to as the unquestioned starting point- a belief, or set of beliefs, that we subconsciously accept as true without verification. Anything else we learn must be forced to either fit into the system built upon the unquestioned starting point, or must be discarded. The belief is supreme.

This is a good time to ask how I would give your post a +1, as I haven't a clue how (or perhaps I'm in a probationary period of some sort? Edit: found it, 50 post minimum).

Our guilt reveals the tail-side nature of God, his wrath, his judgement. Once a person begins to feel themselves an object of gods wrath rather than His love it becomes better to them that he does not exist. They shut their eyes to any higher morality so that they can pass a benign verdict on themselves.

I suppose that there may be some merit to the idea that discarding god makes it easier to live a life that lies outside of his rules. That presumes that there are no other reasons to lead a moral or ethical life, which is an idea that I disagree with. It also presumes that we can scrub our consciences clean by simply flipping our "believe" switch to the "off" position. I can assure you that I did not, at any time, wish for god not to exist. Especially during all of those years that I lived in accordance with his rules as I understood them, which meant I was in line for some sweet sweet rewards in the next life!

Since I came to terms with my atheism, I have changed my life in almost no discernible way from that which I observed before. To paraphrase Penn Jilette, I am doing exactly as many "ungodly" things as I want to... and the number of such things is zero. I didn't forsake god because I figured it was the only way to behave as I wished without guilt. I forsook him because the evidence that he isn't there was much stronger than any evidence that he is. Had I still believed that he existed, I would not have turned from him; there would be no upside.

The idea that atheists "pretend that god doesnt exist in order to be exempt from (blah blah blah)" is a moronic idea at best. I wish I had another way to put it, but I dont. It would possibly make sense if we were the ones advocating and making excuses for murder, rape, genocide, human sacrifice, thievery, slavery, and every other evil thing yahweh and christians support. This is another way the sheeple were duped. The same way the bible tells you that thinking is evil in order to keep people trapped in its evil clutches is the same way christians attempt to paint everyone else as evil.

If they would think they could see through that, unfortunately the bible outlawed thought.

What you don't understand is that in almost every religion there are two sides of the coin. If you are an atheist then you get only the bad side. To you, God is the pissed-off guy in heaven judging every wrong thing you have ever done. When you die this God is going to torture you in your guilty agony for all eternity.

No. What you don't understand is that to an atheist, god doesn't exist. He's not evil or cruel or even all-loving, because we don't believe in his existence. We like to point out the hypocrisies of believers, but that's just for kicks. To the average atheist... There's no god.

I have one catholic collegue at work with whom I sometimes debate on his beliefs and god. I like him so the hardest argument from his side is "Listen, I am happy as a Christian, why do you want me to be unhappy?" I don't really know what to answer

I have one catholic collegue at work with whom I sometimes debate on his beliefs and god. I like him so the hardest argument from his side is "Listen, I am happy as a Christian, why do you want me to be unhappy?" I don't really know what to answer

Do you actually want him to be unhappy? Of course not. You can be a happy atheist. I was a happy catholic once, too. I am happier now.

Or, I prefer difficult truths to comfortable lies.

Or, the Liturgy of Gendlin:

What is true is already so.Owning up to it doesn't make it worse.Not being open about it doesn't make it go away.And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with.Anything untrue isn't there to be believed.People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.- Eugene Gendlin

I have one catholic collegue at work with whom I sometimes debate on his beliefs and god. I like him so the hardest argument from his side is "Listen, I am happy as a Christian, why do you want me to be unhappy?" I don't really know what to answer

Is he taking offense at the way you are talking to him, or is he using it as a way to deflect questions that make him uncomfortable? It sounds very much like the latter, as if his happiness is directly tied to his willingness to accept a belief system that he knows won't hold up to a logical, rational appraisal.

How to answer depends on factors other than straight logic. Logic would demand that you help him face his fear by continuing to demolish his belief system, because believing in things that are not true doesn't have any logical appeal. There are, of course, practical concerns. Do the benefits of pushing the matter (especially if it's unlikely to convince him) outweigh the potential downside (loss of fellowship, increased stress at the workplace)? Then again, many atheists (myself, for example) were never pushed into it. But I think that with continued friendly conversation and explanation of your own viewpoint, you can plant the seed that will eventually help him overcome his unwillingness to put his religious beliefs to the same test as any other intellectual exercise.

Well, he is not a "preaching" type, he is a good collegue and we share the same type of humor. He says he is not wise enough to discuss religion with me but he is happy now. I always get that feeling that I somehow breach his privacy with my "militiant" atheism

I am a very hardcore atheist and quite happy. I suffer no guilt over "sins" that don't really exist. I don't have any evidence of any gods, so I don't think there are any. Every culture manages to come up with rules and laws to regulate human behavior. No gods necessary. I don't pay any attention to supposed orders, rules or commandments from such beings.

I have a good life, a good job, a wonderful family. And other than blatantly religious stuff, my life is almost exactly the same now as when I was religious. I have done many good things for others, lived my life as ethically and morally as any religious person. More than some.....cough George Bush cough......

And I do not have to believe in any supernatural forces or beings to keep from killing, torturing, assaulting, robbing or enslaving other people.

I have one catholic collegue at work with whom I sometimes debate on his beliefs and god. I like him so the hardest argument from his side is "Listen, I am happy as a Christian, why do you want me to be unhappy?" I don't really know what to answer

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw

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Whenever events that are purported to occur in our best interest are as numerous as the events that will just as soon kill us, then intent is hard, if not impossible to assert. NDT

I have one catholic collegue at work with whom I sometimes debate on his beliefs and god. I like him so the hardest argument from his side is "Listen, I am happy as a Christian, why do you want me to be unhappy?" I don't really know what to answer

First off, I work for a Christian organization that specializes in helping the homeless (yes, that one) and so concerning being an atheist I keep my own counsel (keep my mouth shut) out of respect for my employer. However, my closest coworker and immediate supervisor is a strong Christian (ex-Catholic, now a Baptist). He knows I'm an atheist (yet I don't think he really believes it) and we often talk about religion and my being an atheist and each of us knows we won't convince the other. My advantage as an atheist is that he very much respects me and is a little befuddled by someone who is moral while not believing in god and appears to be content.

As an ex-Christian of many years ago, I have read the Bible completely (studied it as well) and so I may "talk the talk" with my coworker being familiar with his guidebook. I don't push too hard or vehemently in my discussions with him regarding religion because I respect his right to believe as he chooses and he is happy with his belief so I don't in any way want to destroy his faith. I make him think (which he does and is not good for a believer in god) and ironically, in a sense, his defense of his Christian faith does make him stronger as a believer--for now, at least, because there have been seeds planted. There does seem to be a line concerning his belief in god (pretty much based upon personal experience) that he will not cross and I'm ok with that if it helps him to lead a happier life. I am not actively trying to change him because he does not try to change me.

My bottom line with my believing coworker is "prove it"--after which religious discussion often slows down since he cannot "prove it" and it simply comes down to faith and "it's a mystery" since we don't know god's mind. His belief in god is based upon the Bible and the scriptures and I have reminded him that it is circular reasoning to then use and quote the Bible to prove there is a god. Interestingly, we do work with a couple of guys who are amputees so I do raise that point with him and I think it is kind of rattling around in the back of his mind because he is careful not too closely and actively to think about it (I can remember when I was in college in the 70s as a "Christian" in name mostly, pondering about evolution and god for a few minutes and coming up with an answer that satisfied me--god caused evolution).

Bringing this back to being on topic, I still don't understand why Christians continue to worship their psychopathic god, but I believe they avoid thinking about it too much or examining it too closely (because such scrutiny will bring the honestly open mind to the conclusion that the emperor has no clothes and for some that would be an experience like being swallowed up by a Florida sinkhole).

When I was a JW, we were given the questions and the answers, just to make sure no messy thinking occured in between the two. The Watchtower magazine had the answers printed at the bottom of the page, just in case. We were admired as "smart" little kids because we could rattle off the answers to questions like the all-time classic, "Did man get here by evolution or by creation?"

Little did we know then that repeating memorized answers without thinking is the opposite of smart. But under the circumstances (fear of the wrath of all the JW adults around us, and possibly even fear of the wrath of Jehovah God-- who knows?) maybe we were pretty smart after all.....When the humans are kinda psychopathic, you expect no less of the god they worship.